IBM warns of looming skills gap due to big data and analytics

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The future will be about how businesses understand and use big data (Source: Getty)

Jessica Morris

IBM has warned of a looming skills gap in the future because not enough people are being trained to meet an inevitable rise in companies' demand for big data and analytics.

Speaking at the World Manufacturing Forum, Sanjay Brahmawar, global head and managing partner, strategic business development at IBM’s Watson Internet of Things business, said: "One of the biggest issues is going to be the gap in skills. “

“Getting the skills required to analyse and manage all of this data is going to be difficult.”

His comments were echoed by Tanja Rueckert, executive vice president LoB Digital Assets at SAP, who also told the audience that the manufacturing sector is experiencing a huge transformation akin to that endured by media a few years ago.

They were referring to the so-called fourth industrial revolution, whereby a string of technologies, most of which already exist individually - from self-driving cars, to the internet of things and big data - will combine to drive sweeping changes across the manufacturing sector.

Firms are starting to use machines, devices and data to learn from and infuse intelligence into their operations. This then allows them to enhance business performance, as well as offer an improved customer experience. However, it is a trend which will require an increasingly different skill set from the workforce.

“By 2020 we will have one million unfilled jobs in the IT sector. Primarily because the skills we have today aren’t the right skills for the future. The future is more about the business understanding and the data understanding,” Brahmawar added.